


a flicker, a flame

by Ninyaaaaaaah



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/M, Familiars, Hamliza, Original Character - Freeform, Vague Magic AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 22:17:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13820574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninyaaaaaaah/pseuds/Ninyaaaaaaah
Summary: Alexander has always been alone. Alone with his words and darkness in his heart, until he meets a familiar who understands him, and a girl who shines sunlight on his life.





	a flicker, a flame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aztael](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aztael/gifts).



> Scribo is an OC belonging to Aztael, all credit for it belongs to them!
> 
> https://toyhou.se/1583666.scribo

Alexander doesn’t remember when it first showed up. At his desk in the dark with only the flickering flame of a candle for company, time ceases to hold meaning. 

One moment it isn’t there.

The next, it is.

It shifts in the flickering, changing shadows, strange eyes shining in the candlelight. 

By the time Alexander looks at it, really looks at it, he feels like it’s always been there, waiting in the shadows with its wide mouth gaping in a toothless grin. With its strange, double pupiled eyes. He pauses, and sets his quill down, and stretches out his hand, palm up, unafraid. 

It doesn’t come out, not that first time. 

~*~

Alexander meets a girl at a ball and he kisses her hand and he falls into her warm brown eyes and he never wants to find himself again. He whirls her around the dance floor and feels like he’s fallen into a dream of blue silk and raven hair and a smile that dazzles him right down to the marrow of his bones. 

Now that he’s felt the touch of her slim hand in his own, now that he’s reached out and tucked her satin hair behind the shell of her ear, looked in those eyes, wanted that mouth, heard her voice… 

It would be impossible not to think of her, not to hope to win her favour. 

~*~

So Alexander sits down to write her a letter. He lights the candle with a flick of a thought, and in the flickering darkness he knows the now familiar shape of the small creature’s shadow. 

He dips his quill in the pot of ink and starts to write, and it feels like meditation to him, putting words to paper like this. Creating something out of nothing, putting shape to thoughts. It’s as easy as breathing.

He can feel those double pupiled eyes on him as he writes, and if he doesn’t look right at it, it comes a little farther out of the shadows, delicate little nostrils flaring, rounded black and tan ears twitching nervously. It’s just larger than Alexander’s hand, and strangely charming with its frilled face and ruffed neck. 

He writes, and it watches him, mouth slightly agape, hungry look in its eyes. 

He seals the letter with the last of his wax, and sets it aside to send in the morning

~*~

Alexander reads out loud to it as he writes, feels a fragile sort of companionship forming like gossamer threads between them. It still doesn’t come out, but he can hear the soft sounds of it moving, can see the edges of it in the shadows, all frilled and dripping black and red. It’s mouth gapes open with a hunger, a yearning. 

“Are you ever going to come out, Scribo?”

And just like that, it has a name. 

Alexander sees it shiver, a whole body thing that could be terror or delight or something else. He stills, and peers into the flickering shadows at it, knows it understands then that words have power. Words have power like guns have power like his fingertips have power like kisses have power. 

He smiles, and goes back to his letter, lets thoughts of beautiful Eliza fill his head and his quill and the parchment. 

He writes and writes and writes, his words filling pages and his voice filling the small, candle lit room, and it feels good to feel not alone, to know there’s this creature, this tiny familiar. To know that it _understands_.

He signs off and folds the letter into a cream coloured envelope. Pictures Eliza’s slim fingers peeling up the wax, lifting the flap, reading his letter. Feels a thrill at knowing he’s touching something she will touch, and hopes he’ll see her again soon. 

He goes to seal the letter, and realizes he’s out of wax. 

He drums his fingers on the desktop, frustrated. 

How did he forget to pick up wax this morning? 

Alexander sighs, frustrated, and pushes the unsealed envelope away. 

He leans back against the tall back of his chair and stares at the envelope, dissatisfied. 

A beat of silence, and then a soft, curious sound. 

Alexander looks up as Scribo pads out of the shadows and he sees it in full light for the first time. Mouth agape, hungry, eyes wide, wary. It slinks across the desk, belly low, one eye on him. 

Alexander holds his breath, tries to still his very heart, watches this curious, black and tan creature slink over to his envelope. He watches it settle over the letter, eyes on Alexander, thick red dripping from its mouth right where a seal would go. 

Alexander blinks, and watches as Scribo settles back onto its haunches, head tipped to the side, watching him. 

He picks up his seal and presses it into the wax, quick and efficient, and sets it aside again. 

Silently, they survey their work. 

“Thanks,” Alexander says. 

~*~

In the morning, the letter is gone. 

Alexander wonders if he wrote it in a dream, if Scribo was a dream, if he conjured it all up in his imagination. 

He pulls his hair back, dresses slowly, wonders at the feeling of completeness that still lingers at the bone deep knowledge that he and this curious creature are one and the same, at their core. Ink hearted, ink veined, so filled up with words that their limbs tremble with them, that ink drips from them, that they can’t _help_ but write and write and write. 

Alexander steps over to the desk, and in the dim light of morning, he sees the corner of the envelope behind the candle. 

He reaches out to pull it back out, and is met with a fierce snarl and a flurry of sharp teeth and claws, hot wax and a spray of dark ink. 

Swearing, Alexander jumps back, the letter falling from his hand to the floor. 

Scribo leaps after it, all frills and fur and fury. 

Alexander snatches the letter and holds it up in the air, watches wide eyed as Scribo leaps back up onto the desk and hisses angrily. 

Alexander stuffs the letter in his pocket.

~*~

Alexander sees Eliza again and he marvels at the way she lights up his entire world. Marvels at the way he feels her smile inside his chest, sunlight and warmth where there was only darkness and emptiness moments before. 

He thinks that maybe she completes him in a way he never knew he could feel complete. 

He thinks that for the first time in a long time, he’s found something that he doesn’t want to lose. 

He thinks that for the first time in a long time he might understand that while there’s a million things worth dying for, this might be something worth living for. 

~*~

So he writes her another letter, and he lets Scribo seal it, and they fight over it again. Alexander looks at Scribo’s tiny body, packed with fight and tooth and ink, and thinks he understands. When there’s not much of you in the world, you want to fight for every piece you put into it. 

He gets that.

But he still sends the letter. 

~*~

So he takes Eliza for walks along the riverbank and delights her with conjured birds that flit along the dirt track before them. He holds her hand and helps her across the stepping stones and leads her to a clearing full of flowers. He spins magic with his words and hopes she’s even a fraction as enchanted by him as he is by her. 

~*~

So after he reads Eliza’s letters, he lets Scribo drip wax on them, just enough to seal them once more. He lets Scribo hoard them in its little shadowy corner of Alexander’s desk. 

In turn, Scribo reluctantly lets him take the letters it seals, if he does it before it can change its mind. 

~*~

Alexander never imagined his life could feel so full. 

Days spent with Eliza, drawing her in, asking her to come ever closer. 

Countless times, he stretches out his fingertips to her. 

Countless times, she smiles that dazzling smile and she twines her fingers with his. She closes the distance, she comes to him, she chooses him again and again and again and he is breathless with it. 

~*~

Alexander never imagined his life could feel so full. 

Nights spent in flickering candlelight, writing letter after letter to Eliza. 

Scribo sits beside him, scrawling letters with its tail on scraps of parchment, and Alexander revels in the symmetry. Eliza, who lights him up and draws him out. Scribo, who is the very mirror of his soul, who understands the power of words, and revels in them unashamedly. 

~*~

The first time Alexander brings Eliza home, he leads her to his desk and guides her hand down to the sturdy wood. She waits, palm open and soft. 

Scribo pads cautiously out, appraising her with those strange eyes, and it pads onto her hand. 

She makes the softest sound of wonder and delight, and Alexander waits behind her with his breath held. 

Scribo considers her for another long moment, this raven haired woman who lights a sun beneath its Alexander’s ribs. 

Satisfied, it uses its tail to scrawl something that isn’t quite a word across her wrist, black ink on creamy skin.


End file.
